Day: June 20, 2018

This could come to blows. zoetnet, Creative Commons There’s something every Scot should know about those caterwauling pipes. By Dr. Vivien Williams / 02.25.2016 Research Assistant in Musicology University of Glasgow The Great Highland bagpipe is as central to Scottish identity as tartan and Robert Burns. Walk down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and you’ll hear that familiar wail,[…]

This figure of a saint was based on a preparatory sketch. Left: Assumption of the Virgin (detail), Andrea del Sarto. Oil on wood. Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence. Source. Right: Study of a Kneeling Figure with a Sketch of a Face, 1522–26, Andrea del Sarto. Red and black chalk. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 84.GB.7 Best known for his solemn[…]

Portrait of Alexios III Komnenos in The Romance of Alexander the Great, 1300s, made in Trebizond, Turkey. Tempera, gold, and ink, 12 5/8 x 9 7/16 in. Image courtesy of the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Postbyzantine Studies, Venice, cod. gr. 5 An art historian embraces her foodie side to uncover the tastes of the Byzantine Empire.[…]

Byzantium in a bottle (or two) Sniffing out the scents of medieval Constantinople. By Saskia Wilson-Brown / 07.03.2014 Artist, Film Producer, Founder Institute for Art and Olfaction Humans have long sought to harness nature—and scent is no exception. Attempts to master our olfactory surroundings date back thousands of years. We have tantalizing hints of early efforts at[…]

Ruins of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, Greece / Wikimedia Commons Looking at the ruins as they stand silently among the low trees at Olympia, it is not hard to imagine how the Olympic Games cultivated the collective consciousness of the Hellenes. Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 06.19.2018 Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief Introduction Olympia (Greek:[…]